Restaurants are in the soup due to lockdown regulations
The lockdown restrictions have left about 80% of the restaurant industry’s workers unemployed through forced closures, and the easing of restrictions is unlikely to improve the dire situation.
Sylvester Ncube from Ottawa Creek Spur in Edenglen putting the finishing touches on their preparations for opening for business amid Covid -19 measures being relaxed soon, 19 June 2020. The new regulations will allow for restaurants to serve meals under strict conditions. Spur will be enforcing social distancing of all their tables, only using every second one and using designated directions for walkways, they have screen dividers and a strict sanitising and food delivery protocol that the staff will be trained in. Picture: Neil McCartney
The lockdown severely crippled the restaurant business and despite the reopening of the industry, the daily closures of restaurants have left 80% of workers unemployed.
In his address to the nation on Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced further reopening of industries during level 3 lockdown, including restaurants for sit-down meals instead of the regulated delivery or collection.
But the industry is already destroyed, Restaurant Association of South Africa chief executive Wendy Alberts said. She said she receives between 10 and 15 messages a day from restaurant owners who are closing their business.
The country has about 23,000 restaurants employing at least 800,000 people.
“So far it is about 700 closures. We are currently in a situation where we have 80% of our staff unemployed,” said Alberts.
It was too late for a recovery plan as people were unemployed due to business closures.
“It’s very sad times for us.
“A business can hardly survive a bad week, never mind a bad month. And we are now going onto a bad season.
“Restaurants have really been decimated.”
Cinemas, theatres, licensed accommodation, hair salons and beauty services were also permitted to reopen.
Ramaphosa emphasised that the agreed stringent safety requirements would have to be in place before a business reopened.
Details of the measures and regulations, as well as the date from which these activities would be permitted again, would be announced in due course, Ramaphosa said.
But should government reinstate the former regulation that stipulated only 50 customers at a time, restaurants would not survive, said Alberts.
“That will be the curtain closure for the industry.
“All the proposals of protocol and measurements put in place to indicate that we can safely open would have been wasted.
“And all the financial models and the decimation we have indicated to them would have been completely lost in translation.”
– rorisangk@citizen.co.za
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